


radiance

by beastofthesky



Series: picking up the pieces [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic, Families of Choice, Gen, M/M, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8655343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastofthesky/pseuds/beastofthesky
Summary: “You sure you’re ready?” Fareeha says, comically serious, face as grave as a six-year-old can possibly make it.“I’m ready,” Jack promises. “One more really good one.” He drops his voice to a stage whisper, glancing conspiratorially up at Gabriel from where he’s kneeling down to Fareeha’s height. “So your mom knows you can kick her butt.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd and part of something bigger i'm working on -- tags/series/etc will be updated accordingly once i'm closer to posting that.

“Jack, _what_ are you doing?”

Gabriel glances between the three of them, a slow grin spreading across his face. Jack, in turn, fires a quick grin at Ana over his shoulder and turns back to Fareeha.

“One more good one,” Jack says, and wiggles his fingers. “One good hit. Remember, hands up in big tight fists.”

“You _sure_ you’re ready?” Fareeha says, comically serious, face as grave as a six-year-old can possibly make it.

“I’m ready,” Jack promises. “One more _really_ good one.” He drops his voice to a stage whisper, glancing conspiratorially up at Gabriel from where he’s kneeling down to Fareeha’s height. “So your mom knows you can kick her butt.”

Fareeha lets a giggle slip, then makes big, serious, I’m-concentrating-hard frown, and whips her skinny little heel out and neatly smacks Jack’s palm dead-center with a loud _hi-yah!_

“Ouch!” Jack shouts, and wrings his hand. Fareeha giggles again. “That was _too_ good. Gabe, look at this. I’m going to bruise. My hand might even be _broken_.”

“No it’s not!” Fareeha accuses.

“Oh, yeah,” Gabriel says seriously. “I think you broke his hand. Jack, your hand feel broken?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Children,” Ana calls, voice stern, but she’s grinning. “Enough teaching my daughter how to maim people. I have enough work sewing you two up.” She leans down and scoops up Fareeha, who instantly latches on and squeezes Ana with all the force she can muster. “Okay, remember what we said. If you want me to read, bedtime is now.”

“O- _kay_ ,” Fareeha says, resigned.

“What do we say?”

She leans as far out of Ana’s grip as she can, little hands reaching for Jack, and Jack squeezes her tight, lets her plant a big smacking kiss on his cheek.

“‘Night, Uncle Jack.”

“‘Night, Fareeha.”

“‘Night, Uncle Gabe.”

“‘Night, mija.”

“Mija Fareeha,” she chirps back before awarding him his good-night hug and kiss.

“And me?” Ana prompts, scandalized, bouncing Fareeha on her hip. Fareeha giggles and shakes her head.

“Now _you_. You gotta say ‘night.”

“ _Me?_ But you’re going to sleep, not me.”

“You hafta!”

Ana laughs at her and then draws Gabriel in with a hand on his arm.

“Goodnight, Uncle Gabriel,” she says, and pulls him down for a kiss on the forehead.

“Uncle Jack!” Fareeha shouts.

“Goodnight, Uncle Jack,” Ana continues dutifully, and pulls in a grinning Jack, ignoring his pink-tinged ears for the sake of his dignity.

“Now _you_ hafta say ‘night, Uncle Gabe.”

“Fareeha,” Ana says, voice tinged with exasperation.

“”Night again, mija Fareeha,” Gabriel says, but Fareeha’s grinning and shaking her head.

“Nuh-uh. Mama first.”

“ _Fareeha_.”

“‘Night, Mama Ana,” Gabriel says, and kisses the top of her head before looking over at Fareeha for approval. “Your turn, mi–” 

“Uncle Jack!” Fareeha shouts again. Jack, in turn, is barely holding in laughter through his grin. Gabriel sighs dramatically.

“‘Night, Uncle Jack,” he says, and presses a kiss to Jack’s cheek. Jack is _definitely_ pink in the cheeks now, too. 

“ _Now_ me.”

“Hmm.” Gabriel puts his hands on his hips. “I don’t know. I already said goodnight to you once–” 

“Again!”

“– _and_ to your Mama, _and_ to Uncle Jack–” 

“Again, again!”

“Are you sure?” Gabriel asks, hands still on his hips, squinting suspiciously at her. “Are you _sure_ sure?”

“Yes!”

“Positive?”

“Positive!”

“You asked for it,” Gabriel says, grinning, and gives no warning before he dives in to gently tickle Fareeha’s sides. She shrieks immediately, feet kicking, and Ana tries so hard to be serious about pushing him away but Jack, as always, has Gabriel’s back and he’s got his fingertips digging into Ana’s ribs and _she’s_ shrieking and Fareeha’s laughing and god, Gabriel would kill for one more night in Cairo. Just one more.

“Okay, okay,” Ana says, after finally shoving the two of them away, “I’m not going to let you rile her up anymore. Good _night,_ you two.”

“Goodnight,” Gabriel says innocently. Ana gives both him and Jack a dark, scolding look before heading down the hallway with Fareeha still giggling over her shoulder.

Only when Ana’s gently closed the door behind herself does Gabriel let himself sigh and run a hand through his hair.

“Can’t imagine how hard it has to be for her,” Jack says quietly.

“For either of them,” Gabriel amends. 

Jack pointedly doesn’t say anything. Gabriel lets the silence stretch and slowly heads back towards the couch, turns the TV on and finds something that’s not the news. He can hear Jack heading for the kitchen and he wishes the mood hadn’t _plummeted_ like that, but there’s really not much they can do now to stave off the weight of their their imminent deployment.

Russia’s a shitshow. It was a shitshow weeks ago and it’ll absolutely be a shitshow for however long they’ll be there and it’ll most likely still be a shitshow after they leave, but hopefully at least _less_ of a shitshow. They’ve had four nights of leave between assignments, miraculously, but it hasn’t been enough to lighten the bruises under Jack’s eyes or soothe the creases between Ana’s brows.

Well– - they’ll live. They have no choice.

Jack returns from the kitchen with the six-pack of beers that Ana had designated for the two of them and sits down heavily, and Gabriel doesn’t mind shifting half an inch towards him so that they can pretend Jack accidentally sat close enough for their legs to press together.

Gabriel isn’t even really sure what movie is on (some remake, maybe, maybe a sequel for something that doesn’t need one) but he’s forcing his mind to go blank instead of tediously running over everything they’d been given in their briefing so it’s all background noise, anyways. Next to him, Jack is his usual knot of nervous habits: picking at a callous on his thumb, running a hand through his hair, chewing at his lower lip. It’s quiet, though, a soft moment in spite of the looming darkness, and Gabriel doesn’t have it in him to break the silence.

It’s over an hour before Ana carefully slips back into the hallway and she looks completely exhausted.

“Everything okay?” Jack asks, voice soft.

“I’m going to sleep,” Ana replies. “I know we were supposed to–” She gestures to the beer (untouched) and the TV (new movie, maybe, Gabriel still doesn’t know), then shrugs apologetically.

“It’s okay,” Gabriel says. Ana needs a night with her daughter more than she needs a night with friends, and the three of them would doubtless just mope for an hour or two. “Go to sleep. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, boys,” Ana tells them, and gives them one last smile before slipping back through the door.

“We should turn in, too,” Jack says without any real conviction, and he doesn’t budge an inch. 

“C’mon, Indiana,” Gabriel murmurs after a minute’s passed, and he reaches over to rest a hand on Jack’s knee. “Last night in a real bed.”

“Won’t be able to sleep, anyways,” Jack mutters under his breath. He’s picked at the callous on his knuckle so thoroughly that it’s started to bleed, deep red seeping sluggishly across raw skin. 

“C’mon,” Gabriel repeats. “I won’t be able to sleep ‘till I know you’re at least resting.”

Jack sighs, defeated, and slumps down a few more inches. Gabriel, in turn, heaves out a sigh and stands, cracks his back, and offers a hand down to Jack. Jack pulls himself up heavily; Gabriel claps a hand on his shoulder and turns the TV off. It’s deafeningly silent.

They tidy up Ana’s home before turning in, putting back their still-untouched beers (a real shame, but Gabriel can’t bring himself to care), starting a dishwasher cycle, neatening up the living room, until everything is a little closer to the military cleanliness they’re more used to living with. 

Jack looks like a fucking zombie by the time he crawls under the covers in the guest room, hair damp from his shower and (probably unintentionally) wearing a tee that has REYES, G written in Sharpie at the back of his collar, mirrored and bleeding through the fabric.

Gabriel sets down his tablet and flicks the light off. Ana’s guest room has little glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling – Fareeha’s idea, of course – and they glow a soft greenish-beige in the dimness, bright enough for Gabriel to see Jack watching him closely from where he’s sprawled across his half of the bed, one arm crooked under his pillow.

Jack finally closes his eyes and half-sighs, half-groans, and he doesn’t have to elaborate for Gabriel to know just how badly he’s dreading the upcoming mission.

“Hey.”

Jack cracks an eye open.

“What?”

“‘Night, Uncle Jack.”

Jack’s laugh is muffled by his pillow.

“Go to sleep. Just start snoring and get it over with so I can spend another night unable to sleep ‘cause of you.”

“Oh, you fucking liar. I don’t snore.”

“Oh, _really?_ Then explain why I can’t sleep at night.”

“‘Cause you don’t say goodnight. You know the rules.”

Gabriel is joking – legitimately joking, just fucking with him – but Jack scoots in anyways, rests a hand on the side of Gabriel’s neck and props himself up to press a slow, lingering kiss to Gabriel’s temple.

“‘Night.”

**Author's Note:**

> i don't usually post fragments/snippets or unbeta'd things but the post-election-depression has been Fucking Real and i like, idk, putting some mindless happy stuff out into the world is like. a thing i can do. also, i'm pretty sure this has the least swearing i have EVER written. i don't think i even used 'fuck' once. who am i
> 
> EDIT: found the fuck. the lone fuck


End file.
